A tragic and avoid­able death

Staten Is­land: We all failed hero Fire­fighter Steven Pol­lard. He fell from the Mill Basin Bridge do­ing his job while on duty Jan. 7. My heart aches for his fam­ily. The city Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion has been work­ing on the Mill Basin Bridge since 2015 and it was es­ti­mated to cost more than $263 mil­lion to re­place the old Mill Basin Bridge. DOT claims that the bridge is not com­plete yet. The Mill Basin Bridge struc­ture is open to traf­fic and is be­ing used daily. But DOT opened it with a three foot gap be­tween the west- and east-bound traf­fic lanes. There are no warn­ing signs posted or safety fences on the struc­ture. Safety should be a pri­or­ity on all struc­tures that are ac­ces­si­ble for pub­lic use.

The sys­tem failed Pol­lard, too. With the mod­ern tech­nol­ogy of to­day all emer­gency re­spon­ders should have up-to-date in­for­ma­tion about any struc­ture they are re­spond­ing to. The fact that that road­way had a gap should have been in­for­ma­tion avail­able to them when they got that call. This was a tragedy that was wait­ing to hap­pen. Whether it was go­ing to be the hero fire­fighter or some­one else.

We must not fail Pol­lard again. Emer­gency re­spon­ders must know the cur­rent con­di­tion of in­fra­struc­ture and the im­prove­ments should be in honor of Pol­lard. The Mill Basin Bridge should also be re­named after Fire­fighter Steve Pol­lard. May God bless him and may he rest in peace. Josephine Rug­giero

Bet­ter way for BQE

Brook­lyn: How can they even think of a project like the re­con­struc­tion of BQE, which would to­tally crip­ple the area and water­front? The ex­tremely close prox­im­ity to all of the apart­ment build­ings and homes will cause un­told dam­age to fam­i­lies who live in this area. School buses that travel these streets to get kids to and from schools will be im­pacted.The trucks that use this road­way will be di­verted dur­ing con­struc­tion at some point, mak­ing con­ges­tion more of a safety con­cern for com­muters as well. There has to be a bet­ter way. Dorothy Collins

Im­mi­grants be­ware!

Brook­lyn: It’s true! The his­toric low lev­els of im­mi­grant “hordes” com­ing to the U.S. is solely, strictly due to the man­age­ment style (lie, cheat, then de­clare bank­ruptcy) of that or­ange-white na­tion­al­ist in D.C. Any im­mi­grant head­ing here should turn back now! Even if they cross the bor­der (highly un­likely) they must com­pete for a sus­tain­ing pay­check, af­ford­able hous­ing and other crit­i­cal need against fur­loughed fed­eral em­ploy­ees, aban­doned veter­ans and debt-crushed stu­dents, to name just a few! Thanks to Pres­i­dent Rump and his band of evil quis­lings any im­mi­grants, or for that mat­ter, cit­i­zen’s chances of sur­vival are next to noth­ing! Soon-to-be fouled air, land and wa­ter, due to rolled-back reg­u­la­tions and, of course, that claimed “fake” cli­mate change news, ris­ing sea lev­els and all, will do them in long be­fore they even glimpse pros­per­ity. Im­mi­grants of the past once thought roads in Amer­ica were paved with gold. If such still ex­ist, then these roads are only lo­cated in ul­tra-rich neigh­bor­hoods now. Eileen Han­ley Play by the rules As­to­ria: To Univi­sion an­chor Jorge Ramos: As long as im­mi­grants go through the proper chan­nels, as did my par­ents to come to the U.S., we will wel­come them. Plain and sim­ple. And we are not racists. Ofe­lia Ben­cosme

Pot use can be lim­ited

Rock­away Park: I’m sure Voicer and re­tired NYPD Capt. Thomas P. Cun­ning­ham’s heart is in the right place, but to make a blan­ket state­ment that mar­i­juana is a gate­way to heroin is mis­in­formed. My own ex­pe­ri­ence says oth­er­wise. My iden­ti­cal twin daugh­ters both used to smoke pot. One went on to get her col­lege de­gree and em­bark on a ca­reer. The other tried pre­scrip­tion oxy­codone, quickly be­came ad­dicted and then moved on to heroin. Bet­ter to say “mar­i­juana is

some­times a gate­way drug.” Ab­so­lutes have no place in this, or any, de­bate. Beth Kennedy

Don’t make mar­i­juana le­gal

Man­hat­tan: I agree with Voicer Thomas P. Cun­ning­ham. I don’t agree with most of these po­lice of­fi­cers all the time, but his state­ment makes sense. For most of my young adult life I have not used mar­i­juana, and it’s not fair to me that it be le­gal­ized! Why do I have to be sub­jected to the smoke of this sub­stance? If it’s le­gal­ized, that means ev­ery­one of age can use it. This is go­ing to be un­con­trol­lable once it’s le­gal­ized. The gov­ern­ment can’t even con­trol va­por cig­a­rettes. Joan Valen­tine

Lost and found

Brook­lyn: Voicer Frank Citrin states that he once re­turned $100 to a bank teller who made a mis­take. He states that he has moral fiber. That was easy to do, as that is not a life-chang­ing amount. The guy who re­turned $10,000 has moral fiber, as that can be life-chang­ing. And to keep the money (it doesn’t mat­ter how rich the per­son who lost it or the per­son who found it) is wrong — not even de­bat­able. Citrin is the guy who is the id­iot, and I am sure many peo­ple would agree. Den­nis Burge

Money be­fore the horses

Man­hat­tan: In the in­ter­ests of clar­ity, would you please stop re­fer­ring to NYCLASS as an “an­i­mal rights group?” NYCLASS doesn’t give a rat’s arse about an­i­mal wel­fare. They are noth­ing more than a front for prop­erty de­vel­op­ment in­ter­ests. Their sole aim in de­stroy­ing the iconic horse car­riage in­dus­try is to en­able Steve Nis­lick to get a re­turn on his in­vest­ment in the mayor’s elec­tion cam­paigns. Nick Ba­con

Di­rect democ­racy

Whit­ing, N.J.: Great idea by Voicer James Dun­leavy to elim­i­nate the House and re­place it by hav­ing “the peo­ple” vote on the is­sues through their com­put­ers. We are al­ready the vic­tims of Rus­sian in­ter­fer­ence in our elec­tions and a Pres­i­dent who won’t ac­knowl­edge or do any­thing about it. Based on his pro­posal, hack­ers would be able to in­flu­ence leg­is­la­tion as well. Now if we can just fig­ure out a way to ma­nip­u­late the ju­di­cial branch. Bill McCon­nell

Jus­tice for abused young­sters

Port Jef­fer­son Sta­tion, L.I.: I want to thank Gov. Cuomo for fi­nally sup­port­ing the Child Vic­tims Act 100%. I hope this bill fi­nally gets passed. Thank you to Sen. Brad Hoyl­man and Assem­bly spon­sor Linda Rosen­thal for all their hard work! Chil­dren of sex abuse can never be for­got­ten. Thomas Folan

God’s word, hu­mans’ ac­tions

Para­mus, N.J.: To Voicer El­iz­abeth Thomas: Teach­ing peo­ple what God’s word says over man’s is “old hat and mis­guided in­for­ma­tion”? Try­ing to preach the bib­li­cal truth is “ig­no­rance and big­otry”? Wow! Who knew? How about you pro­vide me with a sin­gle thing I got wrong, OK? Then get back to me. Or, to re­ally go wild, how about you read God’s word for your­self. Too wild? Try it. You might just learn a thing or two. God bless you as well. Johnny Fa­rina